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Discussion on: Efficient Laziness at Scale: The Agile Team I Never Needed

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Sylwia Laskowska

"It's hiring people who NEED to be managed." – this sentence resonates with me completely. I’ve been working in the industry for years and unfortunately, most developers simply don’t think. They get tasks and just write code.

A few years ago, I was a lead on a team where the developers actually knew the technology we were using much better than I did - so they were better devs in this particular poject. And yet, they were still happy that I was the lead because I had the bigger picture in mind, and they could come to me and ask: “So what should I pick from the backlog next?”

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Pascal CESCATO

That’s exactly the paradox, isn’t it?
We talk about autonomy, but we’ve trained people to wait for direction, even when they know better.
It’s not about skill — it’s conditioning. Most devs learned that taking initiative can backfire, so they play it safe and “pick from the backlog.”
What you did as a lead is what real leadership should be: bringing context, not control.
When people understand why, they don’t need to be managed.